To Ache is to Live
by SickApothecary
Summary: Seven-year-old Luffy wakes up in his bed in Fuschia with a horrific aching in his chest and the feeling that he's missing something, along with a strange and powerful intuition. There's a resolve now, deep inside himself, to become strong, much more so than anything else out there. Strong enough to protect everyone. Time travel-esque fic focusing on Luffy and his relationships.
1. chapter one: the beginning after the end

Luffy wakes up at seven years old, and he aches.

He's sitting in bed with the blankets tangled around his legs. Out the window of his bedroom he can see Fuchsia, with its red-roofed houses and sun rising over the ocean. It's odd, but Luffy almost feels surprise at seeing the view—the very same view that he had woken up to for years now, ever since Gramps had dropped him off to live with Makino. The thing on the forefront of his mind, however, is not his surroundings, but the cold ache that sits heavy, impossibly so, in his chest.

No, rather, it's like there's something missing. There's a cavity, he's certain, that's been carved out of him in his sleep. It's such a physical feeling that he, curiously, lifts his shirt only to find smooth, unmarred skin—and isn't even that surprising? There's no starburst scar, and no hollowness to be told when he rapt a knuckle against his chest. Just smooth, tanned skin with the odd freckle. He itches his chest, feeling as if it _should_ be itchy, but also feeling like he should be reprimanded for itching it. The complexity of his thoughts and feelings are beginning to make him light-headed, and he drops the front of his shirt down.

Maybe he's just really, _really_ hungry. Hungry like he's never been before. Even if the issue doesn't stem from that, food certainly wouldn't hurt the situation.

Aching momentarily compartmentalized in his mind, Luffy stands on his little seven-year-old legs and heads out of his bedroom, but not before grabbing his hat and placing it—too large—on his head. "Makino, I'm _hungry_!"

O O O

Where one day ago Luffy would have been bouncing through the streets, today, after getting a hearty breakfast from Makino, he feels a little listless. The peacefulness of Fuchsia had never bothered him before, but now, with his ache, it feels too small. He roams the handful of streets that there are, but does so with a slow, absent-minded countenance. These streets that he grew up on—is still growing up on—are unfamiliar in the way that one would be unfamiliar with a favorite childhood novel left untouched for years: you know every plot point, but not every detail.

Walking the town and trying to create havoc among the villagers quickly bores him, however. By midday, he returns to Partys Bar to bother Makino while she dealt with the afternoon crowd. Even with the dozen people eating late lunch or escaping the summer sun, the bar felt ghostly without the loud, boundless laughter of the Red-Hair crew to fill it.

The thought made the ache grow stronger. Despite the fact that Shanks and his men had left just last week, it felt like far, far longer in that hollow space in Luffy's chest.

Unbeknownst to Luffy, Makino watches him with a careful eye as he sits on a barstool, slumped over onto the bar top. He looks acutely demure, with pouty lips and unfocused eyes as one of his fingertips trace patterns on the wood. It was difficult not to find the scene a little amusing, and a little heart-wrenching—Luffy had seemed to be getting more used to the idea of Shanks not coming back, and had insisted with his usual big smile that big kids didn't sit around moping. With a tinge of worry, Makino wonders what had made the boy relapse back into sulking. Maybe it would be better to get his mind off it, if only for the moment.

"Luffy," Makino began to speak as she polishes whiskey tumblers, "are you looking forward to Garp-san's visit? It's quite overdue, really. I wonder what's holding him up."

She had expected Luffy to lift his head with a smile, or perhaps adopt one of those wary expressions born from one too many Fists of Love from the old man. Makino certainly didn't expect his head to lift with watery eyes and a stricken mien. "Gramps is on his way?"

Makino blinks, her hands stilling. "Yes, he called last night on the Den Den Mushi—"

The sentence wasn't able to be finished before fat tears were rolling down Luffy's face, accompanied by hitching, hiccupping sobs. Luffy himself doesn't understand the reaction that's pulled out of him forcefully, but recognized in his aching chest (_and oh, isn't that supposed to be where his heart is?_) that he hadn't seen Gramps in a very, very long time. He wants his grandfather right here, right now, so that he could get rid of the tidal waves of emotion that were rolling over him.

"He—he's on his way? Gramps?" Luffy questions through snot and tears, oblivious to the scene he's making as the other patrons begin to watch.

Makino makes her way around the bar and falls to one knee in front of him, her small hands wrapping around his even smaller shoulders. The size difference was so startling that he forgot to cry, if only for a moment, because Luffy thinks that he should be so much larger than he is. "He'll be here by the end of the week, Luffy," Makino says in a calming, lilting tone. "He just needs to cross the Calm Belt and he'll be right here, okay?"

The effort that Luffy makes to stop crying is laughably obvious. He sucks in his lips and makes his eyes widen as far as he can, all while nodding his head rapidly. And while it does stop his physical reaction, the way his heart feels cold does not leave. That's okay, though, because by the end of the week Gramps will be home, and Gramps will have answers.

O O O

When he had woken up that morning, he hadn't woken up with only a hollow chest and a new, strange outlook. There was something else that was new, something that niggled in his mind like a worm eating through his brain—no, that was _too_ gross, even for Luffy. It was like… _heaviness_, but not. An awareness. From his bedroom, he knew that Makino was heading to the docks to welcome a new supply of brew, and that Woop Slap was brewing coffee in his home. There were fishermen getting ready to leave, and melon farmers getting ready to walk the rows. Each person had such a unique, bright light that Luffy doesn't know how he didn't notice it earlier.

It was a week after he had woken up with the strange feeling that Luffy noticed a new light in Fuchsia. It was extraordinarily stronger than all the other lights that hovered along the sides of Luffy's consciousness, and he couldn't repress a shudder that made its way down his ribs. This person was powerful. This person was familiar. This person was—

"Gramps," Luffy whispered under his breath, an excited smile curling on his face. In an instant, he was off his bed, and while still in his nightwear, was bolting down the stairs, through the bar, and down the dusty roads that led to the docks.

He found no shame in saying that his happiness in his grandfather's arrival was peculiar. When Garp came to visit it only means harsh Fists of Love and intense training sessions made to help Luffy become a marine. Normally, Luffy would be doing his all to avoid the old man and his special version of love. Now, however, he couldn't help but chase for that strong light that made his ache both become more pronounced and yet just a little bit settled.

He finally laid eyes on his grandfather when he rounded a street corner with the ferocity of a stampeding tiger, vision locking in on that tall, broad figure. For a moment, Luffy wavered, because it didn't feel right. Garp shouldn't be here, chatting with Makino, with more dark-gray in his hair than white. He should be—somewhere else. He should have more wrinkles. He should be in a marine uniform, not his usual civilian clothes.

But Luffy's grandfather was here, smiling and laughing and no grief to his eyes, and Luffy wouldn't give that up for the world.

"Gramps!" Luffy's shriek was the only warning given before he bolted toward the old man, full-tilt. Garp looked away from Makino and barely had time to open his arms before a small, rubbery body slammed itself into him with as much force as possible, his arms wrapping twice around both of them.

"L-Luffy?" Garp startled, putting one hand on his grandson's back as best he could while being constricted. The questioning tone wasn't undeserved: in all of Garp's memory, Luffy hadn't once welcomed him back like this, or at all. Normally the boy would be running in the other direction while screeching that he would never be a marine, or that he didn't want to train today, or that he didn't need another Fist of Love, _thankyouverymuch_.

A quick look to Makino for answers only made Garp even more confused. She was looking on with an almost-tense smile, the corners of her eyes tight with worry. For a girl whose normal expression was soft and gentle, Garp felt it was in his right to worry even more. When Makino's gaze met his, he felt the _I'll tell you later_ that was sent to him.

In the meantime, Luffy is busy trying not to cry once more. His grandfather, someone who had made the ache accentuate painfully so is right in front of him—right in his arms. So why isn't the feeling going away? Certainly, his presence had acted like a balm, but it was only somewhat. A figurative drop in the bucket.

Luffy peels his face from his grandfather's chest where—despite his best efforts—tears had wetted the shirt. When he looks up, he is met with Garp's puzzled expression, which was vastly different from nearly every other expression he's seen on the old man's face. There's been anger, which pulls down those heavy brows as if they weigh like mountains and forms the mouth into a hearty scowl. There's also been consideration, which looks far more neutral than anything else, with a careful frown and half-opened eyes. Actually, Luffy thinks, most of the old man's expressions included frowning, unless he was laughing at someone else's expense.

Puzzlement, however, includes brows knitted together and a wisp of a smile, as if he thought someone was playing a joke on him. It's a funny look on him, and Luffy smiled through his watery eyes.

"I haven't seen you in forever, you old man!" As with many things he's said before, Luffy is correct in more ways than one, without even knowing it.

Garp seems to have found an answer in the explanation, as he then throws his head back with a laugh. "I suppose a few months really feels like forever for brats like you." He then goes to detach Luffy from himself when he realizes that the boy's arms are wrapped around him twice over. "Huh? What? Eh? _What!_"

Makino hides her smiling face behind a hand. She had been attempting to inform Garp on the newest development to Luffy but she supposes that first-hand exposure would work just as well.

O O O

The trek up the mountain is long and boring, and Luffy makes his thoughts well known from where Garp is holding him mid-air by his rubber-stretched cheek.

"I wouldn't have had to _do_ this is you didn't get these crazy ideas in your head!" Garp spits out, though perhaps not with as much venom as he could have, "Pirate King! _Bah_! You're just as crazy as your dad!"

Luffy's struggling to get out of his grandfather's grip pauses, if only for a moment. "I got a dad?"

Garp also pauses, before shaking Luffy, as if to erase the thought from his mind. "That doesn't matter! What _does_ matter is that you become a good marine! A marine! If you take training seriously, then you could even become a vice-admiral."

At that, Luffy's struggling begins with double the effort. "I'll take your training seriously, but just so I can become the Pirate King! Stupid Gramps!"

The shouting match goes in circles as the jungle around them becomes thicker, and darker. Garp finds that he actually has some trouble keeping his grandson in his grip as he's met by outstretched feet hitting his abdomen and nails scrabbling at his hand, though he would never admit it, much less to the one he's trying to keep a hold on. He's certain that Luffy had not been so tough the last time that he had been around to visit, though he supposes that the damned Devil Fruit could have something to do with it.

When they reach a clearing in the jungle, Luffy stops his struggling in favor of taking in everything. A well-worn dirt path leads a long wooden house with a red tiled roof, and a sketchy-looking tower built behind it. Laundry lines are strung through the trees, with patched-up clothing fluttering in the slight breeze. Where the jungle had been dark and cold in its energy, this place—while not being particularly _friendly_—was brightly-colored and warm.

The very moment that Garp drops him to the ground, Luffy immediately run around, re-energized with the new scenery and eager to explore with childish glee. He ignores the argument-turned-pleas that are happening at the front door between his grandfather and a bulky, curly-haired person (woman? man?), until Gramps picks him up by his collar and tells him to introduce himself.

"Yo!" He says mildly, and then squirms his way out of Garp's grip. As the two adults begin to once again argue, he starts looking around again. There's something missing from the scene, he's decided. There's the house, the bandits, but there's supposed to be something more. The clearing feels too empty, even with the presence of all the bandits still inside the house, and with Gramps. There's something—

There's someone missing.

Then, as he's running around, he stumbles when his mind picks up a new light—a bright one, flaring with emotion. It's heavy with anger, so much so that it's suffocating. Anger, loneliness, guilt. Does this person not feel anything positive? Have they been cursed with a truly baleful existence?

Searching, Luffy peers around to find the source of the light, when his eyes fall on a figure at the edge of the jungle. It's huge—no, it's not huge, that's just the massive corpse of an animal that's been dragged to the position. However, sitting on top of it, was a person that made Luffy's chest constrict with an emotion so alien that he's overwhelmed by it. For a moment, he's certain that he's been pierced with a knife, right through the middle of his chest—right through the middle of his ache.

Luffy knows this person. He knows his name, his smile, his anger. He knows how to fight against and alongside him. He knows the meaning of a tattoo, and he knows what his tears look like. He knows what it feels like to be protected by him, and he knows what it feels like to fail to protect him in turn.

Luffy knows all of this, and he knows that he knows nothing. All this information is just impressions onto a mind too young to understand any of it, so Luffy compartmentalizes it all, just as he compartmentalized the ache when he woke up weeks ago.

The one thing that sticks with him, however, is that this person is important.

This person is Ace.


	2. chapter two: gallivanting into trouble

It's a strange feeling, for you to look at a person you know as deeply as yourself, and yet know nothing about them at all. The person in front of Luffy is a stranger, and he knows this. There's a pain in Luffy that's separate from the ache, one that shoots directly into his heart and seeps into his veins with every pump of his arteries. As a child who, while having undergone traumatic experiences, has never truly experienced loss, it's impossible for him to recognize this as refreshed grief.

Luffy is brought out of his head by the urge to step to the side from the same sense that showed him the light of people he couldn't see—the sense that he had officially dubbed his "mystery sense". He wasn't a moment too soon, as he barely missed a glob of saliva that Ace had spit at him. If he hadn't moved, it certainly would have hit him in the face, which would have made for a poor first meeting. Luffy ignored the fact that spitting in someone's direction whatsoever fell under the category of "poor first meeting".

Ace blinked when he saw that he had missed, but that was the extent of the outward expression of his disgruntlement. Luffy looked up at him with a sharp frown that was made ineffective by looking like a childish pout. "Hey, you should be more careful! You could have hit me with that." The frown immediately lifted after the reprimand, replaced by a sunny smile. "Anyway, my name's Monkey D. Luffy! Nice to meetcha! Did you hunt this all by yourself? That's pretty cool! We should go hunting together sometime. I'll show you how my punch is even more powerful than a pistol!"

From behind, Luffy can hear Gramps saying, "Oh, Ace. Luffy, this is Ace. He's three years older than—"

Before Gramps could finish, Ace leaps off the titanic animal corpse with a nimbleness beyond his age and walks past Luffy, Garp, and all the bandits until he disappears into the bandits' hut in complete silence. He doesn't so much as spare a glance for the newcomer, and Luffy can't help but feel conflicted.

He really, really wants Ace to like him. He wants to be friends with the older boy no matter what, because he's never had friends before—all the kids from Fushsia were either too old or too young to play with, whereas Ace was just close enough. On the other hand, he could feel the hostile energies rolling off Ace in aggressive waves; they were an unfaltering defense against meddling seven-year-olds with far too much energy and friendliness.

It's a good thing that Luffy is a meddling seven-year-old with far too much energy, friendliness, _and_ stubbornness.

"Wait, Ace!" Luffy called out as he scrambled after the boy, one hand holding down his straw hat and the other scratching at an imaginary itch on his chest. "How long have you lived here? Do you have any other friends?"

He's met with a door slammed in his face, along with the tell-tale sound of a lock sliding in place.

There's a silence in the clearing where the bandits, Luffy, and Garp are gathered, until Dadan asks, "Did he just lock all of us out?"

O O O

Luffy doesn't say it, but he knows that his dream will be difficult to accomplish. Even if he didn't have someone telling him so every time he spoke it aloud, he would have known regardless—otherwise, anyone could do it.

However, though Luffy has yet to say it out loud and bind them to himself like an oath, he has more than one dream. Yes, he will be Pirate King, but it's more than that. He's going to be Pirate King, and he will have nine friends by his side when it happens along with hundreds of others left in his wake. And, just as he will accomplish his goal and become Pirate King, all his friends will have their dreams come to life as well.

For now, however, Luffy has thought up of another, smaller dream: to befriend Portgas D. Ace.

And, wildly enough, that dream is on par in difficulty to every other dream he has.

The first obstacle is that Ace wants to bury Luffy six feet into the ground. There is cold malice that radiates from the boy every time Ace looks in Luffy's direction as if he wanted to shoot needles from his eyes to pin Luffy to the wall. This works to dissuade Luffy from any interaction for the first night as he tries to eat dinner with bandits.

Murderous glares graduate to murder attempts the next morning. Luffy follows after Ace as the older boy leaves the hut and makes his way through the forest on a seemingly random path. It's a bit difficult to follow after the older boy, given the cushy life Luffy had led in Fushsia up until this, but at the same time, running through the jungle, eyes trained on Ace's back, is freeing.

He could say that he's never quite felt like this before, short of breath with a soaring heart and a grin on his face, but something in him says that would be a lie. Nostalgia is making itself home in his throat, thick and choking and everything opposite of the emptiness in his chest. The light of the sun dotting through the treetop canopy paints the wilds around him in a daydream filter, like a faded memory forcefully brought to the forefront of his mind.

Luffy's quickly brought out of his mind as he watches with no small amount of awe as Ace quickly ascend a near-vertical cliff face. "That was so cool!" He calls up to the older boy, who looks down at him with his usual flat expression. "Do you come this way a lot? You must be pretty strong. I'm strong too! But I'm going to get even stronger, and stronger, and stronger. Strong enough to be Pirate King!"

From his expression, Ace appears unimpressed by Luffy's declaration. Then, with only a handful of kicks, he strikes out at a tree and topples it over. Even Luffy, young and naïve as he is, knows that level of power is monstrous in an adult, let alone a child. Before he could start lauding praise, however, the felled tree begins to roll down the cliff and right in Luffy's direction.

"Oh crap!" With an instinct that was driven deep within him, Luffy stretched his arm straight up and clamped on a branch before the rest of his body snapped up to follow. One of his sandals fell off when the bottom of his foot scraped the bark of the tree as it passed below him—a narrow miss. A gasping, panicked breath left him as he watched the destructive path of the tree stop when it hit a cliff, and he shuddered to imagine himself stuck between that rock and a hard place.

Luffy turned back around to where Ace was, ready to give a laugh and a _wow! that could have been bad!_ but the space that Ace once occupied was empty, but there was rustling further in the jungle, the sound of footsteps.

It didn't take long for Luffy to catch up to the quick-footed boy. Ace was halfway across a rope-and-plank bridge with careful footsteps when Luffy stood at the edge, giving a wary look to the ravine below. That was… quite a drop. Into a foggy abyss. Were those spikes pointing up? The sight made Luffy's stomach give a lurch, so he shifts his gaze to fix on Ace, still moving forward.

Perhaps a little too eager to not lose him, Luffy begins a fast-pace but careful walk forward, sandaled foot bouncing up and down on the plank as the bridge adjusts to a new weight source. The tremors reach Ace, who turns around with a bewildered look until he spots Luffy. Then, Ace is turning around and storming his way over to Luffy, expression shadowed by his hair.

At first, Luffy is ecstatic, a wide smile breaking out—was this the moment that there was a breakthrough? That they would become irreversible friends, brothers in arms?

But as Ace comes closer, there's a horrific dawning realization that no, there was no breakthrough, because that malicious aura bundling around Ace is even stronger than before. The grip he holds around his metal pipe was threatening to crack it, with the metal underneath his childish hands groaning in protest.

In his mind, Luffy saw what would happen clearly. Ace was going to raise his pipe up with murder in his eyes—because there was no other outcome should Luffy be sent over the bridge's edge but that of a cold-blooded killing—and then Ace would strike down in one fell sweep. The blow would land on Luffy's torso, cracking ribs and causing his breath to eject forcefully as he is catapulted off the bridge and falls into the ravine below.

Luffy sees all this in his mind's eye, and he wants to prevent it. He wants to duck, to step back, to raise his arms in defense. He knows what pain is like a hundred times over, and he doesn't want it to come from the hands of someone he considers—will consider, does consider, did consider—a friend.

As much as he wants to defend himself, Luffy is too slow. _Too weak_, an unfamiliar-familiar voice in his mind hisses unkindly. Ace is older, and faster, and the strike hits true.

Luffy flies off the bridge, but as he does so, he notes that his ribs are not cracked, or even bruised. He screeches in terror as he hurtles toward the bottom of the ravine, but as he does so he clutches at his side and finds the skin there cold, hard, and black, until the strange texture melts away.

_Huh_, he thinks as his vision grows spotty from panic, _mystery armor._

_I wonder if I can get a full suit of mystery armor._

O O O

It takes Luffy a month and a half to reach Gray Terminal.

Following Ace through the forest only grows more difficult with time. It seems as if the older boy is taking Luffy as more of a threat than he had at first, what with Luffy shrugging off the majority of his attacks, though not completely. Luffy gets hit, and hit _a lot_, because he's slower and straight-forward and doesn't fight back, but the mystery armor always helps. However, this makes Ace even angrier, which makes him fight three times as hard, which ultimately means Luffy is forced to complete more death-defying stunts than a seven-year-old should have to.

When he's not following Ace, fighting Ace, dragging himself back to the hut after fighting Ace, or lamenting his weakness in comparison to Ace, Luffy lists around the forest near the hut. He's always far enough away that none of the bandits can rope him into chores, but close enough that he's always aware of exactly how to get back in time for dinner, which he now assists in catching (small things only, though—he can't reach deep enough in the forest for the animals that Ace brings back).

In a way, he feels similar to the way he had been back at Fushsia, after that morning. Aimless wanderings of a place he already knew too well. During these times his mind is clear, but in an absent sense; the only thing that leads his body is the eternal desire to be ever moving forward, not any choice on his mind's part.

It is early morning when his sandaled feet decide to take him away from his usual stomping ground near the hut. He doesn't notice this, of course, as his head is full of air and there's a tangle of complex emotion sitting heavy in his stomach. He doesn't think as his feet take him across the wood bridge, through the darkest part of the forest, over alligator ponds and past monstrous beasts as if it's a simple walk through the park.

Eventually, the trees begin to thin and before anything else does, the stink hits Luffy: it is rot, thick and deep, that's been steeped in the air over the course of decades. His mind comes back to him as he hunches over and wretches as the first wave hit him with a change of the wind, the fresh air of the wilderness chased away by it. He almost stops there, turns around and flees, but there's something that stops him from doing so. Maybe it's the amorphous shape of something that lay where the trees stop, or maybe it's the niggling feeling of _familiarity_ that keeps him moving forward until he looks down upon Gray Terminal.

Even the sky seems duller when matched with the grisly profile of Gray Terminal. Heavy mist crawls through the pathways of the dumpsite as a deathly specter, obscuring most of it from view. Still, from his vantage point, Luffy sees movement below him. More than that, he can feel the light of all those people with his mystery power, though most of them are faint—signs of weakness, Luffy has long since figured out, whether it meant in health or in spirit. This place is full of the dead and dying, and it makes his skin itch.

The thought makes him want to turn on heel and run back, but then his mind snags on a different presence below. A familiar presence. Two familiar presences? One is certainly Ace, and the boy has is constant, roiling anger yet is also exhilarated. The other one that caught Luffy's attention is just as strong in every way, but doesn't carry that same fury—instead, there is a shame like a subtle undertone. The presence courts the edge of familiarity and settles comfortably in Luffy's mind as someone he needs to meet.

With his mind made up, Luffy scrambles down the cliff face and makes his way through Gray Terminal in a beeline toward Ace and the other person. They were a bit far away, but Luffy runs as fast as he can. He's uncomfortable in this place and its stink and death and people who look him over like they are wondering how much his skin would sell for. Yet surely, if Ace was nearby, Luffy would be safer, _feel_ safer.

(Not that he couldn't protect himself, Luffy knows. It was just that he can't separate the thought of Gray Terminal with the idea of _evil_, despite knowing nothing about the place thus far.)

It is in the middle of the dump that Luffy stumbles across Ace, another kid, and what seems to be a gang of six other unknown people. Everyone is in a fighting stance but stood still, anticipation lining every person's form. Between Ace and the other kid is a heavy-looking sack on the ground, and the two angled themselves to protect it.

(Later, when he has time to himself, Luffy will realize that when he laid eyes on Sabo, there was another lance of unrecognizable pain, of grief, that shot through him. It was softer, understated, yet still, it is one that had dropped heavily in his stomach He will not know why this feeling keeps on rushing through him, or why it will come back with a vengeance sometimes when he looks at Ace and Sabo for too long, but maybe he's not supposed to know.)

As Luffy spots them, Ace is talking with one of the strangers, his aura of murder turned up to one-hundred percent.

"—don't want trouble with him." There was an unsaid _for now_ as Ace tightens his grip on the pipe he's weaponized.

A man, the leader of the other group, scoffs. "You'll get trouble at the rate you're going, you little brat. Keep it up and you'll be on his shit list."

"For now we aren't," the blond kid by Ace says, "so let's call this a day and go our own ways, shall we?"

The man's gaze bounces from the blond to Ace and then to the sack, and his intentions were obvious. "Sure. But first, hand over your valuables—reparations and all that, you know?"

"Like hell!" Ace snarled, and the glass standoff shattered as he lunged forward with a swing of his pipe. The blond was quick to follow, and in an instant two men were already down and the other four were belatedly reacting, and sloppily at that. It was clear who had the advantage in the oncoming fight, but Luffy still wants to jump in, and so he does.

Luffy launches himself forward with a shout, his fist rocketing backward before it slings forward. The hit to the nearest stranger is perfect and oh-so-satisfying as they rocket backward into a junk pile and disappear from view. Satisfaction warms Luffy's body, and he pumps a fist.

"Luffy!" Ace's tone is incredulous as he barks out the name, and Luffy grins as he turns to the older boy.

"You remembered my name!" He shouts out with his hands in the air, triumphant. He knew all that bonding time in the forest was working in his favor.

Before he could say much else, however, one of the three remaining strangers left is rushing toward him, knife in the air. Luffy knows this because he sees it with his own two eyes but it's also just like that time with Ace, over a month ago, when he wanted to move but was too slow. Too slow, too weak to protect himself _again_.

_Uh oh_, is all the time he has to think. But then, the strangest thing happens: Ace, strong in ways that Luffy isn't, bolts forward and intercepts the knife with a glancing blow of his pipe, which causes the stranger to drop it and shriek from the pain of a now-broken hand. With a few more well-placed strikes, every opponent is down, with the blond having dealt with the remainder.

"You saved me!" Luffy throws himself at Ace, who expertly dodges the attack of affection and watches apathetically as Luffy tumbles to the ground.

"Shut the hell up. What do you think you're doing here?" Ace looms with his arms crossed over his chest. It would be perfectly threatening—his youth be damned—to anyone who wasn't Luffy.

Luffy picks himself up from the ground and grins, wide and bright. "To find you, duh! I kept on losing you in the forest. Don't know why you keep coming here every day, this place kinda sucks. Oh, who are you? Are you Ace's friend? Be mine too!"

The blond, who had grabbed the sack laying on the ground, chose that moment to walk up. He too looked down on Luffy with an unimpressed frown. "So this is that kid who's been following you, Ace? It's weird that he managed to get here at all, with that dangerous path you take through the mountain."

"Must not be too dangerous if he got through it," Ace huffs before turning on heel and moving deeper through the trash heap. The blond follows him while dragging the sack, and the two leave Luffy among the unconscious attackers.

"Wait, where are you going? Don't leave me here! Ace! Blondie! Hey!" Clambering over the bodies, Luffy sprints to where the two boys had disappeared among the trash. He refused to let them go so easily after he had just found them and, after all, Luffy knew his place was right there alongside them. So why did they keep on leaving him behind?

. . .

. .

.

A/N: I'm (Franky voice) suuuupeeeer sorry about this late, late update. I've been floating around as my life goes to hell before me, y'know? My computer crashed so I lost this completed chapter + all the future chapters I had been working on, and I've been busy trying to nab this apartment I'm applying for, and my birthday just happened (confetti), and I've been doing odd jobs around town so. Anyway. Explanations aside, I'll try to be a bit more on the up-n-up about updates.

As for the chapter! Hope you liked it. It was a bit difficult to write, but I powered thru it thanks to all the nice reviews! I was a bit unsure of what to do about what conflict to have, since Luffy shows up at Gray Terminal (also is it Gray Terminal or _the _Gray Terminal?), and as such Ace hasn't officially pissed off Bluejam yet bc he hasn't stolen the money yet.

Sidenote, I'm sorta looking for a beta? And I'm not sure how to find one? None of my friends I would usually go to have read OP, and I feel like that's sort of important for a fic like this. It'd be mostly just making sure things make sense and checking that I keep my tenses right, lol.

(Also thank you for telling me how to spell Fushsia, bc it's spelled differently in like, every fic I've read. I've seen Fuschia, Fooshsia, Fooschia, Fuushsia, etc.)


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